Chapter 3
CHAPTER
NEW YORK CITY
Elsa stood on the east steps of the American Museum of Natural History, her gaze winging over the street and into Central Park. Not that she could see all that much from here. The fall migration had started, and she was itching to spend time deep in the park’s Ramble with the seasonal visitors.
The only birds she saw at work were dead ones.
She buttoned her knit cardigan. Taxis and buses motored past, with commuting autos in between them.
Exhaust fumes rode the breeze. After checking her watch, Elsa glanced to the right and spotted her roommate Ivy, on her way home from working at the New-York Historical Society on the next block over.
Their apartment was a mere tenth of a mile from here, and they almost always walked to and from work together.
“Good day?” Elsa asked, meeting her on the sidewalk.
“So much fun. Friday is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, so we’ve been getting ready for the commemorative event.
” Ivy paused, placing one Oxford pump on the second step to retie the laces.
“If people thought our giant July Fourth bash was the end of our celebration of the American Revolution, they’re about to find out it was only the beginning. ” Straightening, she beamed.
Ivy had earned a master’s degree in American history from Bryn Mawr outside Philadelphia before moving to Manhattan for a fresh start. All these American Revolution anniversaries were totally her cup of tea.
Elsa linked her arm through Ivy’s and started walking. “Will the society be commemorating every significant date for the next seven years, ending with a party for the peace treaty?”
“I wish!” Ivy laughed. “Our plan is to at least honor the meaningful ones for New York State, but rest assured, I’ll be honoring every moment in my heart.
Prepare to hear about each one.” They sidestepped a boy hawking the evening news.
“How about you? How did it go working through those field notebooks you brought back from Elmhurst?”
Elsa’s nose wrinkled. “I didn’t get as far along in them as I would have liked. More boxes arrived from the Customs House, and those don’t wait.” As she spoke, they passed a pair of starlings eating the remains of a soft pretzel on the ground.
“Who at the Customs House is sending you packages?”
“We have patrons who sometimes send us birds or bird skins from overseas, and those have to go through customs first.”
Ivy frowned. “As in, they go on vacation and decide to kill birds for the museum while they’re at it?”
“Something like that. At least most of them have a handbook on how to prepare the skins, thanks to one of my colleagues, Mr. Griscom. You wouldn’t believe what we were getting a few years ago.
But some people still don’t follow directions.
In one of the packages today, birds were shipped in the flesh—that means they didn’t just send the skins but the entire bodies—and they hadn’t been fully dried first. They used a wooden box instead of tin, and insects destroyed them.
Mr. Chapman still wants to use the skeletons, though. ”
Ivy cast her a sidelong glance. “Let me guess. You have to clean the remaining flesh from bone?”
“I’ll spare you the details. You’re welcome.”
Ivy shuddered, and sun winked off her dangling earrings.
Elsa laughed. “I’ll go through the Van Tessels’ notebooks over the weekend, and hopefully I’ll find more next Monday when I go back. I wish you could come with me and see what it’s like.”
“I’d like that, too. I was so excited when I learned Mrs. Van Tessel bequeathed her paintings by John Audubon to the society.
I volunteered to go collect them, but I’m a librarian, not a curator.
Still, I’d love to see the estate and Tarrytown.
Did you know that British Major John Andre was arrested as a spy near there on September 23, 1780?
His capture exposed Benedict Arnold’s plan to surrender the fort at West Point.
Plus, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was set just north of the town.
The Headless Horseman lost his head during one of the Revolutionary battles.
” She wiggled her dark eyebrows. “You haven’t seen any ghosts on the estate, have you? ”
“You’ll have to come see for yourself,” Elsa teased. The Hudson River valley was famous for its supernatural legends, none of which fazed her.
“Let’s plan on it.”
“Speaking of plans, you don’t have any for this evening, do you?” Elsa asked.
Ivy swept her black bangs to one side. “I don’t know. Do I?”
At the corner of Eighty-First Street, they waited for autos and cabs to pass.
Half a dozen sparrows perched on the street sign, watching.
A smile tugged Elsa’s mouth. “We’ve been invited for dinner with Archer and a friend of his.
And when I say ‘invited,’ I mean begged.
Practically coerced. At least he promised that dancing won’t be part of the evening.
It’s a weeknight after all, and everyone has work in the morning.
But as Archer says, we still have to eat. Shall we go?”
“Is this the same Archer Hamlin who dressed up as the mummy of King Tut for that Halloween party you took us to last fall?”
“The same. And his friend played the role of Lord Carnarvon.”
Ivy laughed. “I’d love to go out tonight. Friday I’m busy with the Battle of Brooklyn event, anyway. Where are we going?”
“The Ritz-Carlton.”
Ivy turned to Elsa and gaped. “I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to breathe the air in front of that place, let alone eat their food.
” She may have a graduate degree from a prestigious all-girls school, but what she couldn’t fund herself was provided by scholarships and a personal benefactress. Ivy had never been wealthy.
“We wouldn’t be paying, they would be,” Elsa said as they hurried across the street to their hotel-apartment complex, the Beresford. The doorman greeted them each by name as they entered.
“I don’t know,” Ivy murmured. They crossed the lobby to the elevators and waited for one to open. “It sounds thrilling, but I wouldn’t fit in with the Ritz crowd.”
“You got that right. I consider that to be one of your finest qualities.”
The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside and requested their floor from the operator.
Once the door opened on their floor, they thanked him and headed down the corridor.
Ivy still looked thoughtful. Ever since illness stole her family when she was only fourteen, she’d earned her own way by becoming a widow’s companion and personal secretary.
She would never spend gobs of money on a gourmet dinner at a fancy hotel restaurant when she was already paying for dining room meals that came with living in a Beresford apartment.
Honestly, Elsa didn’t fit in with the Ritz crowd, either.
She’d been to the Ritz, and to The Plaza, and to Hotel Astor, most often as a guest attending with her parents the debutante balls of her peers.
She never danced, of course, but it wouldn’t do to decline the invitations.
And so she’d sat on the edge of those parties, her back flawlessly straight, while her parents waltzed with the rest. Those nights would have been torture without her cousin Lauren there to keep her company.
“We don’t have to go.” Elsa unlocked the apartment door and waited for Ivy to enter before she closed and locked it behind them. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“I wouldn’t if you were with me.” Ivy hung her purse on a hook on the wall, then propped a fist on her hip. “To tell you the truth, I’ve always wanted to see what all the fuss was about the Ritz. And you and I don’t pay?”
“Not a dime.”
“But what would I wear?”
Elsa smiled. “I’ll help you choose.”
Inside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel foyer, Elsa untied the silk scarf she’d worn to protect her hair. Archer and his friend, Percy Osborne, had picked her and Ivy up in Archer’s white Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible, which made for a windblown twenty-minute ride.
From the foyer, they passed directly into the Palm Room, where potted palm trees soared beneath a glass ceiling. At the far end of the room, an orchestra played from a gallery.
“Well, this is the berries. I knew I wouldn’t be fancy enough for this place,” Ivy whispered as she tucked her own scarf and dark glasses into her purse.
Couples sat at small tables, drinks in hand.
Judging by their formal dress, they’d be heading to the theater, opera, or Ziegfeld’s Follies tonight.
“You look stunning, as always,” Elsa told her friend.
Ivy’s sleek black bob was a striking contrast to her perfect creamy complexion.
The curvy figure beneath her sheath dress may not be the current fashion, but she was oblivious to the admiration she drew.
“And if by ‘fancy,’ you mean entitled, arrogant, and grossly wealthy, then fancy is not a trait you ought to aspire to, anyway.”
Archer laughed. “That’s a bleak picture of our set, isn’t it?”
Elsa didn’t enjoy being lumped together with the people who frequented the Ritz. “Let’s call them our parents’ set, then, but not ours.”
“And yet here we are,” Percy quipped, “right along with them. Would you prefer a hot dog from a pushcart in Central Park?” His brown eyes sparkled behind round tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
“I gather you’ve never had a fresh hot dog in Central Park.” Ivy twisted a rope of beads around one finger. “They’re delicious!”
Percy huffed. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Archer chuckled and led the foursome through the Palm Room and Oval Restaurant, then up two flights of stairs to the outdoor Roof Garden. Heads turned, ever so slightly, as people noticed Elsa’s limp and then pretended not to.
By the time they reached their round table for four, Elsa’s leg ached, and her breath came quicker than it should. It was a silent throbbing that whispered to her, You’re different. You’re weak. You’re a burden to be cast off as soon as you slow them down.